1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal apparatus that controls processing on an interrupt event, based on the priority of an operating state in the terminal apparatus and the priority of the interrupt event, when the interrupt event is generated, and a control program thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electronic devices such as cellular phones (equivalent to terminal apparatus), when events called interrupt events such as voice incoming call, e-mail incoming call, and time alarm are generated, processing on an interrupt event is controlled in response to an operating state of the electronic device.
Generally, when the operating state of the electronic device is a functional operation, the event is controlled, so as not to allow the interrupt event to disturb the operation of the function, such that the interrupt event deemed less important than the function in operation is reported to a user by merely displaying a small mark, kept reserved instead of letting the interrupt event interrupt the function in operation, and reported once again to the user when the operation of the function is terminated or not reported to the user.
As such a conventional art, one is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-Open (Kokai) Patent Publication No. 2004-015717. In the technology disclosed in the publication, there is proposed a cellular phone with a preferential control function that suspends the operation of a function in execution to preferentially operate an interrupted function, when the interrupt of a function of higher priority (importance) than the function in operation (interrupt event) is generated.
In recent years, functions accompanied with audio outputs such as music replay function, dynamic image function, and television set and radio broadcast output function are equipped with electronic devices such as cellular phones. One example for controlling processing on interrupt events in such electronic devices is taken up. When interrupt events of voice incoming call, e-mail incoming call, and time alarm are generated while the operating state is in idle state, the interrupt events are deemed more important than the idle state and they are reported with the sound and screen display.
In addition, when the operating state is a state of a music replay function in operation, controls are performed such that the voice incoming call is deemed more important than the music replay and reported with the sound and screen display, the e-mail incoming call is deemed as important as the music replay and reported by merely displaying the mark of an e-mail, and the time alarm is deemed less important than the music replay and kept reserved to be reported with the sound and screen display when the music replay function is terminated.
In the case of the function accompanied with the audio output as mentioned above, a user does not necessarily use the cellular phone by focusing on the function. For example, in the case of a folding open/close-type electronic device, the user may fold the electronic device and put it into the cloth pocket and walk outdoors while merely listening to the audio of a TV (television) broadcast or a radio broadcast with an earphone connected to the electronic device. Under such circumstances, the importance of a function must be different in comparison to a case in which the user uses the electronic device by focusing on the function. Namely, interrupt events that are deemed better reported to the user more increase than when using the electronic device by focusing on a certain function.
For example, when the user uses the electronic device by focusing on a TV broadcasting output function (listening to the audio while watching a TV screen on the electronic device), the TV broadcasting output function is more important than the time alarm. On the contrary, when the user uses the electronic device without focusing on a certain function (merely listening to the audio), the time alarm should be reported even when the TV broadcasting output function is in operation. Further, when the importance of two functions is almost equal, an event may be reported by merely displaying an e-mail mark as in the aforementioned e-mail incoming call, and the user may not possibly notice such a report because the electronic device is in a folded position and the user does not watch a screen thereof.
However, the above-described related art (refer to Japanese Laid-Open (Kokai) Patent Publication No. 2004-015717) has a problem that the generation of an interrupt event can not be adequately reported to the user in response to a condition that the user uses the electronic device, because the related art simply controls the operations of a function in execution and a function that interrupts the function in execution in accordance with the priority of functions.